Los Alamos: Overlooks & Quick Stops

Long before the Manhattan Project came to the Pajarito Plateau, the Ancestral Pueblo people lived in the area. Two to three families of Tewa-speaking people likely occupied this Pueblo around 1225. It would have included bedrooms, kitchens, storage rooms, and a semi-circular kiva used for ceremonies and meetings. The Pueblo is part of the Los Alamos History Museum campus.

Ashley Pond has been a prominent feature of Los Alamos since the homesteading and Los Alamos Ranch School eras. Strolling around the pond, you may walk in the footsteps of famous scientists, Ranch School students, or the cattle who drank here.

How special is your bathtub to you? In wartime Los Alamos, most residents lived in hastily constructed housing. Houses with amenities like bathtubs were rare and reserved for the highest-ranking members of the Manhattan Project. These well-built homes with their luxurious bathtubs gave this street the nickname “Bathtub Row.” Visitors to Los Alamos can still walk down Bathtub Row today.

T-101, a civilian women’s dormitory, housed women civilians, or non-military staff who were working for the Manhattan Project. Some of the earliest dormitories built on the mesa, they were designed by architect Willard C. Kruger, who also designed many non-military facilities for Project Y. While there is only one dormitory still standing today, Project Y was said to have four civilian dormitories, two men and two women housing structures.

The leaders of Project Y in Los Alamos have statues memorializing them in downtown Los Alamos. One statue is of J. Robert Oppenheimer who oversaw the Los Alamos Laboratory and gathered top scientists and engineers to design and fabricate the world’s first atomic weapons. The other statue is of Gen. Leslie Groves who led the Project Y from a military standpoint, securing funding and supporting project plans and ideas.

This memorial commemorates the building where the world's first atomic device was assembled. When the Manhattan Project acquired the Los Alamos Ranch School, engineers took advantage of the existing buildings, including a small icehouse on the bank of Ashley Pond. Scientists assembled the nuclear components for a test device, known as “the Gadget”, in the Ice House. The Gadget was detonated on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity test site on the Alamogordo Bombing Range.

Hike the Kwage Mesa Trail to gain a better understanding why Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Gen. Leslie Groves selected the Pajarito Plateau for their top-secret laboratory.   Groves chose the site in part because the mesa tops and canyons provided the remote, inaccessible landscape the Manhattan Project required. The Kwaga Mesa trail is a 4.3-mile (6.9 km) loop that offers extraordinary views of these mesas and canyons.

The Lamy Train Station was the first stop for Manhattan Project scientist and workers on their way to Los Alamos. Located in Lamy, New Mexico, the station is part of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. The current structure, built in a Spanish Mission style, replaced the original two-story wood-frame structure erected in 1881. From here, workers were shuttled to 109 E. Palace to be issued their top-secret badge before driving to Los Alamos.

This building is a replica of the historic security gate all Manhattan Project workers passed through to enter Los Alamos. The building is a bathroom for Main Gate Park. If you are visiting Los Alamos with an RV camper, you may park at Main Gate Park. Oversized vehicle parking is limited in downtown Los Alamos.

In an ideal location for a house, Edith Warner lived in the adobe structure near the bridge. As the railroad came through, she collected packages for the San Ildefonso Pueblo and the Los Alamos Ranch School. In 1942, a man that Warner had known because of his many trips to this area, came by and said, “Your life’s going to change.” That man was Robert J. Oppenheimer, the soon to be director of the of the top-secret lab in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. .